Vol. 51, Issue 3, pp. 309-320

Abstract

Bending losses in optical fibers comprise one of the extrinsic attenuations that contribute to optical loss and they are essential for optical fiber bending sensor applications. This work investigated the optical loss in a standard single-mode step-index fiber optics due to fiber bending at 1550 nm wavelength. Variations in macro-bending loss with curvature radius and turn number have been measured. Curvature radius and turn number are examined for sinusoidal and elliptical shaped bending configurations. It has been found that the loss increases as the bending radius and number of turns increase. The result also showed that elliptical shaped bending configuration produced more loss in contrast to that of sinusoidal shaped at bending angles of 180° and 360°. The study on the macro-bending loss in terms of curvature radius and turn number for both elliptical and sinusoidal shaped bending configurations is beneficial for future fiber optic sensor applications.